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Other Recovering photos from iPhone 4S

Discussion in 'General' started by FatPandas, 26 Nov 2013.

  1. FatPandas

    FatPandas What's a Dremel?

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    Hi all.

    Apologies for my absence, haven't been on here in sometime but I have a problem that I'm hoping someone can help me with.

    I'm not entirely sure whether this is in the correct section, tech support would be more appropriate but I'm assuming due to my low post count it wont let me put this in that section just yet. None the less, I hope someone can help me help a friend of mine.

    One of my work mates has asked me to see if I can recover any data (photos in particular) from his late sons iPhone 4S (running iOS 6.0).

    He recently got it back from the Police and they factory reset the device after going through it.

    He's not entirely sure whether his son ever backed up his phone to iTunes/iCloud, or if he had ever done so - what machine it's backed up too.

    I've googled around a bit and found a lot of references to this data recovery software called Dr.Fone, I checked out a trial of it and it only pulls up a photo my workmate took and nothing from before the factory reset.

    I'd really like to help the guy out but I'm worried that those photos are gone forever and without an iTunes / iCloud backup there is no hope of seeing them again?

    I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction and I can at least pull something off his old phone.

    Thanks for any and all help in advanced.

    - Christian
     
  2. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    As a former Apple phone drone I can say with a fair degree of certainty that those photos are gone and not coming back...

    The Camera Roll *may* have been backed up through itunes or icloud... but without either of those, it's not looking good...

    TL-DR - They're almost certainly gone
     
  3. Atomic

    Atomic Gerwaff

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    I would be looking into making a claim against the police for destruction of property if they wiped the device whilst it was in their possession.

    Unless the PIN/password was provided their is a high chance they performed a forensic analysis of the device, if so there is a good chance they will still have a copy of all the data in evidence... getting hold of this might not be so easy.

    If all you want is a copy of the photos from the device this is very easy to do from most of the forensic 'phone dump' software.

    There should be a full chain of custody for seized evidence so tracking down where it went and who handled it shouldn't be too hard. The first thing to do is contact the officer who was dealing with the case and see what they say.

    If all else fails there is the IPCC, but it's best to leave this as a last resort if the police force themselves cannot or will not help you.
     
  4. goldstar0011

    goldstar0011 Multimodder

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    iCloud control panel

    No idea if this is right, I tried it once but don't remember what it does for photo's, for some reason I think it add's a Windows Explorer Photo Stream icon, if it's backed up on the cloud you might be in luck.

    Otherwise if it's that important try the phone of every computer that has iTunes.
     
  5. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

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    the iCloud Control Panel is about much use as a chocolate fireplace [and that's when/if it works]...

    To check if there are any iTunes backups [you don't need the phone connected to check] and when they were made. Fire up iTunes, then go to Edit -> Preferences, click on 'Devices' and it'll list any/all backups on the computer and when they were made.

    But even then it's hit and miss as to what [if anything] you'll get back. One of the many things I learned from working for fruit company is the backup/restore process is at best ****ing unreliable...
     
  6. Guinevere

    Guinevere Mega Mom

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    If (Big if) the phone has been backed up to iTunes and if (Another big if) you have access to that machine and if (Another one) it wasn't an encrypted backup...

    ...then you can restore the phone.

    I've used iTunes backup on lots of devices and used it lots of time. It has never failed to backup correctly (I develop iOS software).

    If you don't have access to an accessible iTunes backup... then sorry, unless the police got the images off forensically you've very little chance.

    Have a read up on:

    http://katanaforensics.com/lantern/
     

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